There are so many ways social analytics helps brands win, though some of those ways are much more exciting than others. Customer care is a must, of course – but it’s pretty boring to talk about. Not so with trends. When we see next generation AI helping brands predict trends, things get spicy. Unexpected insight has a way of raising brand managers’ adrenaline levels. Here’s why!
Exploring the “What Ifs”
What if there was a tool able to harness consumer and market intelligence, gathered from an amazing array of sources. Something that could then apply advanced AI-powered analysis to all of this structured and unstructured data and spot trends?
That sort of trend analytics exists, though you may not be hearing much about it. There are only two best-in-class platforms capturing both sides of that consumer and market intelligence sandwich for brands – and that’s NetBase Quid!
Quid Spots Trends Over Time
In Quid, we’re able to see companies, blogs, news and patent intel that could inform every category imaginable. For example, when searching for company intel around a hot topic right now, like sustainability.
Last year, we saw a number of categories positioning themselves as ecofriendly, particularly in the Fashion, Food & Beverage, and Automotive space, as this data visualization bears out:
This year, we see even more industries outside of the usual suspects of agriculture and energy in all of its many forms/subsets entering the arena. It’s a bit of a shift from last year, with ecommerce and real estate making notable advances in the space:
And what sort of events are happening in each of these areas, exactly? With clickable, easy-to-explore insight, we can explore any of the categories in numerous ways to see what is happening:
When visualized another way (one of many ways available), we can see that not only are newcomers entering the market, but also that the financial impact their entry is having is on the category is significant. Spending around sustainability efforts were through the roof in 2019. And they appear likely to match or beat 2019’s numbers this year:
And we can see precisely where this funding is going as well. In 2019, there was a $166.2M Hybrid Air Vehicle Limited private investment; and in 2020, we see EcoVadis SAS, a provider of supply market intelligence services for businesses, with a $200M private investment.
Both automotive and ecommerce companies would want to be aware of these things, as well as the context each is wrapped in from a consumer standpoint. And for that, we turn to NetBase.
NetBase Discovers Themes & Reveals Consumer Sentiment
So, what are consumers saying about sustainability? Social listening has the answers and AI Studio adds a layer of predictive analysis to the output.
AI Studio is the industry’s only artificial intelligence analysis framework able to deliver meaningful real-time insights in seconds, and without the need for manual, user-directed machine learning systems.
Even better? Unsupervised theme discovery finds both the themes you know and, more importantly, those you don’t. We’ve eliminated the “analyst bias” of user selected training data.
With that in mind, and looking at our insight through an untarnished lens, we can learn so much about consumers to inform where smart brands are headed – and where yours should be too. Focusing in on one area from our analysis, we see consumer participation beginning to trend.
Consumers are interested in innovative solutions that they can get involved in:
They very much want to be part of the solution, and are seeking out brands that provide these opportunities:
And, to say they are passionate about participating would be an understatement:
The “what if” scenarios are for any brand ready to move forward with sustainable, interactive options are limitless, really. And brands following sustainability trends are already making headway in a number of categories.
Brands Predicting Trends with AI Analytics
Thanks to theme discovery and the data visualizations mentioned above, we have access to intel that helps us spot others “in the know.” And of late, and corresponding with emerging markets, there are quite a few fashion, ecommerce and other brands zoning in on sustainability.
We see Patagonia making a carbon positive commitment, Amazon committing resources to the effort on multiple fronts, Nike’s #MoveToZero campaign, and Aldi “committed to reducing, reusing and recycling waste, increasing energy efficiency, decreasing our carbon footprint and improving our green building standards across all of our stores and operations.”
These choices are expensive and require long-term restructuring of key processes, so you can be certain they’re well researched ideas. And you can be sure trend analytics helped inform them all. The next wave of change agents will come faster now, and require advanced insight to keep pace while making solid business decisions, as there will be many options from which to choose. Be sure you’re siding with consumer sentiment by basing those choices on next generation AI-powered consumer and market intelligence!
Reach out to see theme discovery and data visualizations connecting in real-time. It’s sure to make your CEO’s pulse quicken considering its potential, and you’ll want to be the one responsible for that!
